Sunday, 6 March 2011

BLOGGERS BLOCK?

February was a write off me in the blogger stakes I am afraid, starting fears that I might be suffering from Bloggers block? No such chance for the local politicians in the run up to Mays Borough Council Poll.

My absence was more to do with Cllr overload as case work reached record levels, it seems as ever the more you do, the more you will be asked to do. The problem with being an Independent though is that frustrated voters from across the town contact you when their own Councillors have failed to deliver for them! One such case I am dealing with at present has been ignored by the two local Lib Dem Cllrs for over two years now. Well when I say ignored I don't mean totally ignored, as they did manage to make an initial visit and talk the elderly couple involved into donating £40 for Liberal Democrat funds!! More of that later. And how about the other Liberal Democrat Councillor who borrowed £150 from an old aged pensioner in their ward two years ago and still hasn't paid it back? That will loosen my keyboard strokes in the near future no doubt! The leader of the Council Cllr Brian Hoare is aware of the above of course and I even gave him the chance to get his group to repay the elderly gentlemen the "Loan" so as to save the council any future embarrassment. But like most other requests for decency and compromise it fell on death ears.

February also saw me very busy assisting an old friend and comrade Ann Timson who so bravely tackled six smash and grab robbers outside Micheal Jones Jewellers with just her handbag as a weapon.Having promised An I would deal with the press fro her I was perhaps not surprised but overwhelmed when with worldwide media frenzy that followed. Ann gave limited dignified interviews, ignored the press pack and refused to take a penny for her troubles, as a result a lot of local and national charities will benefit. More of that too later.

All that coupled with two councils at the Town and County Halls both cutting services to the bone and both blaming the other party in power/opposition for doing so whilst conveniently forgetting that it is their own Tory/LibDem coalition at Westminster who is really responsible in the first place for their cuts agenda.

Oh and apologies I took a week off in beautiful Dubrovnik during half term with my wife to boot so a very busy 21 out of 28 days of February, but a silent blog.

The Lions were good, so were 210 Rhinos in Chester, and the 253 Penguins in Liverpool, Newport had dragons and Norwich if I remember Elephants. This is a national campaign raising much needed money for local and national charities. If you want the truth though our 57 Lions raised less than most other cities and were mainly sponsored and brought by the council themselves together with their partners. This is not a but it is acknowledging that such schemes are good but are not blue/yellow sky thinking from the Lib Dems.

Another example "Britain in Bloom" NBC couldn't want to profile and recieve praise for the work of George in Spring Boroughs and his community garden which eventually featured on the front page of the Royal Horticultural Societys magazine. But the truth again is that George and his neighbours started the garden because they were fed up to the back teeth of the Council not maintaining the gardens outside their flats despite them being paid to do so.

I Love my town, and I Love my parks, but again if you are unfortunate to live in a part of town not srtegic enough to the Lib Dems election chances you get none of the £250,000 alloocated for the programme spent in your ward.

Likewise check which parts of town have benifitted so far from the councils spend on the Decent Homes Programme whilst my constituents in Castle Ward remain in the most unfit housing in the Borough.

I would love to run the council, on behalf of all its people and not just for the benifit of some of the town or for party interest.

Thank You

Thank you for visiting "tonyclarkegreenparty" The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. They are made by me personally in my own capacity as free citizen and not as representative of any outside body or council that I may serve on or be employed by. However if anyone is offended by any of these comments or feels that they should be corrected then please contact me in the first instance at tony.clarke@email.com and I will do my best to consider your comments and correct any errors.

THE GREEN PARTY

Tony Clarke Green Party

Biog

Tony was Born in Northampton, and lives in the town with his wife
and two children. Leaving school at 15 he began a career which started
as roofer. He has also been a lumberjack, dry stone waller, training and
personnel manager, a social work lecturer, spent 14 yrs working for the
County Council, 12 yrs as a member of the Borough Council, and 8 yrs as
MP for Northampton S. In Parliament he was renowned for his
independent views. He was also a Special Constable with Northamptonshire
Police and was General Manager and a Director of Northampton Town
Football Club for over 10years, he is currently the Independent County
Councillor for Castle Ward. Tony mixes his local community work with
international activity, a former Chair of the Northern Ireland Select
Committee, Tony represented the Government, working with parliaments,
paramilitaries and suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland,
Palestine/Middle East, Albania and South Africa specialising on conflict
resolution and election monitoring.